


most sacred law

by bluebeholder



Series: Season 12 Coda Fic [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: 12x10 coda, Angst, Confessions, Friendship, Gen, Heavy Angst, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Season/Series 12 Spoilers, Shipper!Sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 03:08:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9579716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder
Summary: In the wake of the fight with Ishim and all the associated revelations, Sam has questions for Cas. He's not sure, though, that he'll like the answers at all.





	

**Author's Note:**

> _I am drowning in emotions._ That episode just about killed me. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy the angst.
> 
> EDIT: You guys, you guys, you guys!!! The incredible [vslvsct-csdaena](http://vslvsct-csdaena.tumblr.com/) translated this fic into Russian! It's up [here](https://ficbook.net/readfic/5220625), and if you speak Russian you should go read their translation! :)

Sam corners Cas after Dean has gone to bed. “We need to talk,” he says.

Cas looks distinctly wary. “About what?” 

“A lot of things,” Sam says. He looks around at the bare hallway. “We should…sit down somewhere. Library maybe.”

They go to the library. The lights are dim and it’s very quiet. It’s almost midnight, but Sam is restless enough that he knows he won’t sleep until two or three anyway. They take seats on opposite sides of the table, Sam watching Cas, Cas staring away at the telescope. 

“What do you want to discuss?” Cas finally asks. 

Sam shrugs, at a loss for words. There’s so much to say, and just like always he doesn’t feel like they have enough time to say it all. “Let’s start with Dean,” he says. 

Cas lets out an undignified snort. He folds his arms. “As usual.”

“It’s not about his behavior,” Sam says. “I’m not…I’m not looking for you to forgive him, or anything. Really. I’m just curious about some things.” 

The angel side-eyes him hard. “Go on.”

Sam sighs and steels his nerves. “Bear with me, okay? It’s kind of a long way around. Ishim was in love with Lily, right?”

“Yes,” Cas says. “Though I think Lily’s choice to call it obsession is much more accurate.”

“Right,” Sam says, nodding, “obsession. And…whatever we call it…Ishim thought that you felt the same way about Dean.” 

Cas goes still, and honestly that’s enough to answer all the rest of Sam’s questions. “Yes,” he says. “He thought that.”

Sam leans his elbows on the table and plows forward, knowing that this could be about to get very ugly and somehow not caring. “So was he right?” he asks. 

He expects Cas to yell at him, but instead the angel just puts his face in his hands. He doesn’t say anything. Sam waits. He knows an answer is coming, even if it takes a while. 

Finally, Cas looks up, meeting Sam’s eyes for the first time in this conversation. His eyes are red-rimmed, and the lines on his face are deep and sad. “What do you think, Sam?”

For another long moment, there’s silence. “I know how you feel about Dean,” Sam says softly. “It’s obvious.”

“I know it is,” Cas says, and his voice is so weary, so human, that Sam’s heart breaks a little. 

“I’m sorry.” Sam looks down at the table. “For what that’s worth.”

Cas makes a wounded sound. “It’s worth more than you know.”

Sam gathers his courage and looks back at Cas. The angel is staring at the telescope again. “I just wanted to know what you were going to do about it,” Sam says.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Cas asks. His voice shakes. “I’m not going to do anything.”

“Cas!” Sam says, and he’s going to go on, to tell Cas to go wake Dean up right now, to let Sam lock them in a closet until they work it out, to tell Cas that this might be his last chance and he has to do something, anything, about this, but Cas interrupts him.

“No, Sam!” he snaps. Cas’s fierce scowl is enough to make Sam shut his mouth and listen without a word. “Didn’t you hear the story? To have relations with a human—to know them carnally—is forbidden to angels. It is the most sacred law. If I broke it, I’d be worse than outcast. I’d be a fugitive again, and so would Dean. I won’t do that to him.”

Sam leans forward. “You don’t have to know Dean carnally,” he says earnestly. That’s an image he doesn’t want to dwell on, actually, so he goes on. “Just…tell him how you feel. There doesn’t have to be anything more. He feels the same way, he—”

“Do you think I don’t know!?” Cas cries. He turns to Sam, expression begging Sam to understand something that just doesn’t make sense. “I love him! I’d do anything for him, I’d give my life for him, my Grace, everything! I have given those things, over and over and over, because I can never give him what he would want!”

“He might not want sex,” Sam says, but it’s hesitant, because he knows Dean. He’s seen the way Dean’s eyes follow Cas. He’s not stupid, and he’s certainly not unobservant. 

“The problem,” Cas says, leaning back in his chair, “is that I want the same things.”

Sam’s eyes pop a little. He can’t help it. “You…do?”

“Yes,” Cas says. “I’ve been human. I know what desire feels like.”

“And you still won’t talk to him,” Sam says.

Cas nods. “I can’t break that law,” he says, soft and regretful. “Not even for Dean. You saw how Ishim responded to even our friendship. Can you imagine if we loved the way we both want?”

Sam swallows past a lump in his throat. It kills him, seeing the two people he cares about most in the world hurting like this. “He’d have killed you both,” he says.

“So I give him everything I can,” Cas says. He shrugs and smiles ruefully. “It’s nothing I wouldn’t give anyway, if we were ‘in a relationship’. I may not be able to love him the way I want, but…I can be close to him. That’s enough.”

“Is it?” Sam can’t help asking. 

Cas raises his head and stares up at the ceiling. “It has to be enough,” he says.

There’s silence again, and Sam doesn’t know how to break it. Only one question remains, and he almost doesn’t want to ask it. But he has to. He has to know what’s going to happen. “You’ve broken so many laws,” he says. “Why not this one?”

Cas closes his eyes. “If I break it,” he says slowly, “I will no longer be an angel. All that I have been will mean nothing. All the pain, all the sacrifices, all the things I’ve done…they will mean nothing.”

“But you’d have Dean,” Sam says. 

“I would not be the thing that he loves anymore,” Cas says, voice barely a whisper. “And then I would lose Dean. I would lose everything.”

Sam can’t think of anything to say. 

“It’s better to give what I can,” Cas says, opening his eyes and looking back at Sam. “It’s better to live for him and die for him without loving him, because at least then I can be near him.”

“I’m sorry, Cas,” Sam says, a sad echo of his earlier apology. 

“It’s all right,” Cas says quietly. He studies his hands, all too human right now. Sam notices that Ishim’s blood is still dried under his fingernails. “We’ll go on, just like we always have.”

Again, Sam doesn’t know what to say. Is it worse to lose the person you love, or to stand next to them every day unable to even articulate your feelings? He doesn’t know. 

“Hester was right, all those years ago,” Cas says. He sighs, getting to his feet. “When I first laid hand on Dean in Hell, I was lost.”

Sam stands too, not bothering to push in his chair. He comes around the table, putting his hands on Cas’s shoulders. “Maybe you weren’t lost,” he says, gently as he can. Cas shakes his head, opening his mouth to disagree, but Sam keeps talking. “Maybe—hear me out, Cas—maybe you were found.”

Cas looks at Sam. He’s so tired, and he looks so sad, and Sam doesn’t know how to even begin fixing what’s happened to him. “I don’t understand,” he says.

“Whether you get the chance to love Dean openly or not, you’re still better than Ishim,” Sam says. “You don’t…you wouldn’t kill people like he did. You don’t look down on humans. You care. You have a heart.”

“Too much heart was always my problem,” Cas says bitterly.

“It’s not a problem,” Sam says. He squeezes Cas’s shoulders. “Your heart is why Dean loves you.”

Cas makes a choked sound and presses his hands to his face. Sam pulls him into a hug, as if he can protect the angel from all the horrible things that the world seems determined to throw at him. Cas goes willingly, letting Sam just stand there and hug him for a moment. It’s strange, how fragile this ancient and powerful being is, when Sam’s holding him. 

After a while, Cas takes a step back. Sam doesn’t say anything about the wet spot on his shirt, and doesn’t comment on Cas’s red eyes. “It will be all right,” he says quietly. 

“I don’t know about that,” Cas says, “but thank you for the reassurance.”

“Go to bed,” Sam says after another second. It’s past midnight now, and suddenly his restlessness has turned into exhaustion. “I mean…I won’t say it will be better in the morning, but at least you’ll have slept.”

Cas smiles wryly. “What a very human solution,” he says. 

Sam gives him a small, friendly shove. “Of course it is,” he says. “I’m a human, and if you’re gonna live with humans, you’ve got to do what humans do. When in Rome and all that.”

“Stop trying to convert me faster,” Cas mutters, but the smile has stuck a little, and Sam is going to count that as a win for now. “Good night, Sam.”

“Night, Cas,” Sam says. 

They go their separate ways. Sam isn’t sure how he feels. He doesn’t know what he’ll do tomorrow. He doesn’t know how to encourage Cas to talk to Dean, whether he should even try to get Dean to talk to Cas. He might just make it all worse. But he can’t just see them both so unhappy like this. 

His last thought before he falls asleep sometime around one in the morning is that even if he does say something, they might not have time to make a change before the world breaks again.


End file.
